While the country fries, corporations are swimming in money

It sure took the New York Times long enough to figure out what many of us have been talking about for some time now: That instead of using bail-out money and low-interest loans to restart the economy, large corporations are treading water at best, saving the money for replacement equipment and cutting jobs, for their next big acquisition and cutting jobs, stockpiling the money so that upper-echelon managers can safely parachute away and cutting jobs, making sure shareholders get a beefy dividend and cutting jobs, or generally not doing anything at all and cutting jobs. One thing they are not doing at the moment is creating new jobs. Why? Because maximizing profits is still the number one goal in life. Nothing else matters, even the survival of the country. The domestic economy will not improve unless these corporations start using the $1.6 trillion they have stockpiled for job creation; if the vast disparity in wages was managed in a more equitable manner, this alone could create jobs. But if there are fewer people with money to spend, the economy will not restart. If corporations do not hire, people will fear for their own jobs, and save more in this vicious cycle. More people will be on unemployment, raising government deficits. For corporations in a global economic environment, American consumers don’t matter as much to American corporations as they used to; there are always customers elsewhere. Ironically (or not) small businesses that need the money to invest and hire new employees have been stopped at the door when seeking the same loans.

The claim is that corporations are waiting until after elections to see if the “climate” is more “business-friendly”—meaning, of course if more Republicans populate Congress. Unless voters retrieve their senses on election day, that will certainly happen. The health care and financial reform bills will at best be the only significant “change” we will have seen from this administration, and frankly we were lucky to get that given the way conservative Democrats blocked anything of greater substance. And we may not even have that if Republicans gain majorities in both chambers. Only Obama will have the ability to keep Republicans and their corporate allies from running amuck and building another “bubble” that people will mistake for growth but in reality is merely the precursor for another bust that reveals that the interest of business is not to build a structurally sound domestic economy, but to outsource and cut jobs in order to maximize profits and personal bank accounts—while the average American will continue to suffer low wages and job insecurity. When the next bust comes, companies will again blackmail the federal government for bailout money, and their Republican backers will again accuse Democrats of wasting taxpayer money to gain political advantage (even though TARP has in fact not in end cost taxpayers anything—and has even made a profit), and of course demand that more tax cuts for business, more deregulation, and expect that clouding voters’ minds to the truth of their crimes. Even now, Karl Rove’s “non-profit” Crossroads GPA campaign organization claims on its website that the Obama administration is “cutting the supply of investment capital” to businesses. The reality is that financial entities have been loaning large companies massive funds; the question is what do they intend to do with the money. What appears to be happening is that companies are “investing” in their own profit margins and pocket books.